Mar - Apr 2003 Issue

FEATURES

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE

Stuart Rojstaczer, an associate professor at the Nicholas School, now a visiting scholar at Stanford University, writes in a January 2003 Washington Post op-ed, "The C, once commonly accepted, is now the equivalent of the mark of Cain on a college transcript."

During the last Gulf War, Saddam Hussein's troops released more than 400 million gallons of crude oil--forty times what was spilled by the Exxon Valdez--from Kuwaiti wells into the Arabian Gulf, coating the Saudi coast and creating the largest oil spill in history. Eleven years later, on the eve of another conflict with Iraq, a team of scientists from South Carolina conducted a massive ecological assessment as part of the international response to the Gulf War spill.

If it is a dark and dreary Durham in your soul, it may be that your seafaring side has been starved, that you long for the ocean. And if so, a vessel awaits you-- History 106S: "Explorations at Sea." Professor Janet Ewald has offered the "intellectual voyage" twice to date.

Duke's Fuqua School of Business and Seoul National University's College of Business Administration signed a letter of intent for a four-part alliance that expands Duke's presence in Asia and Seoul National's presence in North America. This is a key step in accomplishing their strategic goals of becoming truly global schools of business, say officials at both institutions.

Adapting literature for the screen was one of the themes of this year's Blackburn Literary Festival at Duke, which began February 27 with a special screening of the film The Hours, followed by an evening with Michael Cunningham, author of the Pulitzer-Prize winning book upon which the movie was based.

Duke gave its former medical center laundry in the Burch Avenue neighborhood to the Durham HousingAuthority to turn into housing for low-income senior citizens. Members of the Durham Planning Commission unanimously approved two separate rezoning and special use reviews for the property.

New U.S. census data showing that Hispanics have edged past blacks may be somewhat misleading, says William Darity Jr., a research professor of public policy studies, African and African-American studies, and economics at Duke's Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy.

A campus film series dubbed Reel Evil made its contentious debut in February and continued through mid-April. The series featured a selection of six films made in countries regarded as hostile to the United States, including three that constitute a cinematic "Axis of Evil."

The fear sparked by new epidemics such as SARS is fueled not just by the very real danger it poses, but also because it reflects anxieties already present in our culture, says Priscilla Wald, a Duke professor who studies contagion, disease, and popular culture. "This is what everybody's been afraid of," Wald says. "What happens if the common cold gets deadly?"

For the second consecutive year, Duke has received a record number of applications from high-school seniors. This year's application total of 16,656 is 762 more applications than received last year (15,894). The previous record, set in 1987, was 15,120 applications.

President Nannerl O. Keohane rejected a call from a student-faculty group for the university to divest from companies with military ties to Israel. In her statement, Keohane said the tactic of divestment was "was not well designed" for the purpose of resolving the complicated issues of the region.

Two years ago, the Duke swimming and diving teams arrived at the ACC Championship meet, walked in, and realized something was not right: Most of the other swimmers were wearing what appeared to be wetsuits. "We were like, 'Oh no, we're in trouble here,' " says Lauren Hancock, a junior. "'They've got the Fastskins.' "

One of the library's newest collections of visual materials consists of works by Lynn Saville, who photographs urban landscapes at night. Saville'71, a native of North Carolina, now lives and works in New York.

Months after the death of seventeen-year-old Jèsica Santill·n, Duke Hospital is continuing its investigation of a heart-lung transplant error that has prompted intensive media scrutiny and public discussion of related medical, legal, and public-policy issues.

Helping your child find the right college is a process that can never start too soon. There are many things to consider: when to apply and, if selected, how to pay for it. To help educate potential applicants--and particularly those footing the bill--the Duke Alumni Association is sponsoring its tenth Alumni Admissions Forum, an all-day conference to be held June 27.

In their research on turning adult stem cells isolated from fat into cartilage, Duke Medical Center researchers have demonstrated that the level of oxygen present during the transformation process is a key switch in stimulating the stem cells to change. Their findings were presented in February at the annual meeting of the Orthopedic Research Society.

Uniform PerspectivesEditors: The "young U.S. Army punks in uniform" ["Letters from Afghanistan," November- December 2002] made it possible for our equally young [Barnaby] Hall to wander around Kabul taking pictures, without having to worry about getting his throat cut. His comments caused me to wonder if he was not the real punk.

When this issue was in its planning stages, the war with Iraq was looming as a possibility. By the time the issue was in its final stages of design, the war (though certainly not the restoring of civil order) had concluded.